Jeroen wrote:In most fianchetto lines white is slightly better. The top engines are clearly struggling to find the right plans for black, according to Kotronias. Your match kinda proves he is right :-).

IIRC, the kingside fianchetto was the prescribed remedy against the KID in the 20s and 30s. By the time of the first Tal--Botvinnik WCh this system was already considered somewhat old-fashioned and for the many decades in-between largely obscured by the Petrosian, the Saemisch and - most enduringly - Mar del Plata systems. So now it seems again that the Fianchetto is White's surest weapon, one that keeps the tightest lid on Black's counterplay.

Jeroen wrote:If you want to see black wins, I can recommend you trying my KI Mar del Plata set.

A match on the combined set (100 pos) between the same opponents is already running. You were right: after only two games there is a win already, and it's a black win, too.

Jeroen wrote:If you use the same playing tempo as the current match, we will get a lot of exciting games and wins, also by black.

I thought the complexity of the MdP merited a slower tempo still, so the base time has been doubled to 60m. Will post a new thread once the first 10 games are finished. The whole match may take around a month.

Some time before the Fianchetto match finished I also started a Houdini--ASMfish match on your Classical set. It's run on my main, slower, box and I can only spare eight cores; however, the longer TC seems to compensate fine: Houdini often comes out of the book at d=30+. A new thread for it should be up today; please have a good look at the games -- the results are bewildering, to say the least.

Jeroen wrote:In any case thanks for playing this match!

You are welcome and thank you for providing such interesting opening suites in the first place.

Would you consider accepting a request or two for your to-do list? I'd love to see a Noomen suite (or a few) based on Marin's English Opening two volumes or (make it "or/and" ;) on Shaw's King's Gambit. These are some hefty tomes but not more so than Kotronias' KID volumes combined, I imagine.

fauzi wrote:Thanks for the interesting match,
can you please share the pgn file for all the games?

If the Filedropper link posted twice in this thread doesn't work for you here's an alternative link: PGN

beram wrote:Houdini 6 wins this match with all these tough positional fights.
It is clearly favorite over Komodo in a possible TCEC final, IF both make it to the final

Thx for playing this match

You're welcome, Bram and thank you for the matches you run -- they are always of interest.

As for Komodo's prospects in the current TCEC, even if the dev version playing there is improved to the extent that for every win against Houdini it only loses three games to it (rather than five as in this match) there won't be a Houdini--Komodo final.

fauzi wrote:Thanks for the interesting match,
can you please share the pgn file for all the games?

If the Filedropper link posted twice in this thread doesn't work for you here's an alternative link: PGN

beram wrote:Houdini 6 wins this match with all these tough positional fights.
It is clearly favorite over Komodo in a possible TCEC final, IF both make it to the final

Thx for playing this match

You're welcome, Bram and thank you for the matches you run -- they are always of interest.

As for Komodo's prospects in the current TCEC, even if the dev version playing there is improved to the extent that for every win against Houdini it only loses three games to it (rather than five as in this match) there won't be a Houdini--Komodo final.

Yeah it's clearly Stockfish and Houdini. Komodo will be a very lonely third.

fauzi wrote:Thanks for the interesting match,
can you please share the pgn file for all the games?

If the Filedropper link posted twice in this thread doesn't work for you here's an alternative link: PGN

beram wrote:Houdini 6 wins this match with all these tough positional fights.
It is clearly favorite over Komodo in a possible TCEC final, IF both make it to the final

Thx for playing this match

You're welcome, Bram and thank you for the matches you run -- they are always of interest.

As for Komodo's prospects in the current TCEC, even if the dev version playing there is improved to the extent that for every win against Houdini it only loses three games to it (rather than five as in this match) there won't be a Houdini--Komodo final.

Yeah it's clearly Stockfish and Houdini. Komodo will be a very lonely third.

In all fairness it must be pointed out that in the ongoing Mar del Plate testsuite match the fight is much closer.

Whether it's that the positions there are more congenial to Komodo, or that K takes better advantage of the double base time (i.e, Komodo's alleged superior scalability in LTC) I cannot say (although I'm inclined towards the latter); but for what it's worth Komodo is currently leading by a point for the fourth time in that match, which never happened once here - Komodo's first win was in game 28, by which time Houdini was already up six games.